The present invention relates generally to the distribution of multimedia files to portable wireless devices, and more particularly relates to distributing multimedia files to portable wireless devices using a wireless unit associated with a transportation provider.
With the continuously evolving capabilities of the Internet, consumers and their Internet-enabled devices are developing growing appetites for bandwidth-intensive applications. One of these applications is the distribution of multimedia files such as short movie clips or even full-length feature films.
Wireless network technology is also evolving rapidly, although the bandwidths currently available for multimedia applications tend to lag behind those available in fixed networks. Wide-area wireless networks, such as Wideband-CDMA networks conforming to standards developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), are evolving to offer increased bandwidth and promise to support varied multimedia applications. At the same time, advanced local-area wireless technology is also evolving, offering even greater bandwidth capabilities.
Although evolving wide-area wireless networks offer more and more bandwidth, the ultimate capacity of these networks is limited by practical considerations. In particular, the capacity is limited by the rate of re-use of wireless spectrum. This re-use can be increased by increasing the complexity of the wireless technology, increasing the number of base stations used, or both. Either approach imposes significant costs, such that downloading large multimedia files over these wide-area networks may be prohibitively costly for some applications.
Often, the same multimedia content will be desired by many users, and thus repeatedly accessed. Besides being costly, repeated transmission of this content over wide-area wireless networks is wasteful of the spectrum resources, and may cause the performance of the network to suffer, especially during peak demand periods.
On the other hand, personal and local area technologies, such as wireless local area network (WLAN) technology or Bluetooth technology, tend to be less expensive to operate. However, the range of these technologies is limited, and conventional technologies require that the wireless access point be fixed, and connected to a wired Internet access point, in order to provide real-time access to the broad range of applications and data available on the Internet. Thus, although transmission of multimedia content to a subscriber device using wireless local area technologies is relatively fast and cost effective, availability of specific content often depends upon whether the subscriber is within range of a fixed access point providing access to the Internet.